It is getting late in the day and the pool area at the Crystal Palace is clearing out. I am the only dancer on-stage out here. While there were large groups of rowdy guys out here earlier, yelling and clapping and filling our garters with money, there are only about twenty men left. The groups have gone inside, where three other stages have opened up and they can spread out and compare the breast sizes of the dancers more easily. The men that are left are mostly singles, sitting at tables by themselves drinking beer and watching me.

I am dancing on the pool stage, which is basically just a one-foot wide raised tiled runway between the pool and the hot tub. The space limitations, and the fact that I am wearing five-inch heels and walking on slick tile, mean that my dance moves are very restrained. Basically, what we do when we are on the pool stage is walk up and down making eye contact with the men until they approach the stage. Then we move very slowly in front of them for a moment or two and they slip money in our garters. Many men, a surprising number of men, have never seen a nude girl outside in the daylight. Before I started working this job, I hadn’t ever seen a nude girl outside in the daylight. In fact, I hadn’t ever been nude outside like this myself.

It is difficult to get ready for work here. Daylight is very unforgiving compared to the incredible stage lighting inside the club. You can’t miss a stray hair on an ankle or a thigh. Razor burn looks awful, so we rub deodorant on our bikini lines so that the nasty red bumps recede. Bruises and veins show up mercilessly, as do scars. Make-up can cover them inside, but out here, unless you are endlessly vigilant, the make-up will streak or be just a shade away from your natural skin color and look awful. Also, the sun gets hot and if you sweat while dancing it will run. Eye make-up needs to be perfect—if it is too dark you look ridiculous by the pool. Even though we wear sunglasses, we take them on and off during our set because men like to look at our eyes. Sunglasses can’t be too tight, then, or you get those red marks on the side of your nose. Chipped toe nail polish, gray hairs, fine lines around the eyes—all of these things fade away under the black lights and strobe lights inside. Some girls won’t even work the pool because of the hassle or because they feel they don’t look good enough outside. And if you don’t look right, a manager will be sure to tell you. For me, there is a definite satisfaction in working the pool though. By the time I set foot on that stage, I have checked every inch of my body in the mirror in the dressing room, and in natural light. I have rubbed oil on my skin so that it glistens in the sun and I have painstakingly covered any blemishes. I wear long diamond earrings that sparkle, a matching necklace and a belly chain—when I take off my purple bikini it is good to have flashy jewelry on. Sometimes I put blue and pink glitter on my skin—it gives me this Little Mermaid effect that works well. White high heels make my legs look long and tan. They’d better, after all the hours I spend either working out or lying in a coffin-like tanning bed. This is as close as I get to perfect. Even now, of course, there are numerous things that I can’t stand about my body. But the customers don’t care—they give me money anyhow. And for a little while, I can impersonate Glitter Bathing Barbie.

This evening the men tip me quickly. They realize that I will lose the bikini as soon as I have ten dollars in my garter. Then they can just sit back and watch. Before the first song is over I have taken off my top. An older man approaches the stage and I dance for him for a few seconds. “Turn around,” he asks, and I do. “How much more to get you naked?” he asks as the song ends.

“Five dollars,” I say, laughing to myself. Naked? No. Sorry. I am a performer. I am working. I am as fully clothed as anyone here, if only through my painstaking ministrations. He folds a five-dollar bill and puts it in my garter. I rest a hand on his shoulder for balance and pull my bikini bottoms off. Some of the girls have bottoms that snap away, but I have found that men really like it when I have to stumble to take off the bottoms. Then I don’t look too professional, too slick. Right now, I wobble a bit for effect. I stand back up, smile shyly, and toss my bottoms onto a lounge chair. He slips a few more dollars in my white sequined garter and returns to his seat.

I have two more songs to dance to before my set is over. The men are still watching, but I begin to drift off. The folded money against my leg sometimes bites my skin, sometimes feels like a rough fabric. I am aware of it moving with me. I can smell it, the smoky thick smell of men in bars. Money always smells like its traders. I can also smell my body with all the smells I collect from a day of dancing—oils and lotions and liquor and skin. The final song is by Roxy Music, a sad, echoey eighties song that I usually request for my last set. I smile and toss my sunglasses onto the lounge chair, remembering the countless times that I have listened to this song, the endless emotions that have played accompaniment to it.

The sun is setting over the high fence that surrounds the pool area. The last rays fall on my skin, seeming to reach around the sides of my body in a pleasant warmth. My back, my butt, are cool and I am aware of the movement of my hair on my skin. I feel sorry for the men and the waitresses who have their clothes on, who are not allowed to take them off. At the same time, I find it interesting I am only allowed to take mine off in public here.

As I walk the tile runway, I can feel the steam rising on my left leg from the hot tub and the cool vacancy of the air over the pool on my right leg. My chest is tilted towards the sun, a tilt that is unavoidable in heels but that feels good right now, as if I am trying to suck the last of that warmth into me, into my deepest lungs. A feeling of rich solitude comes over me. The sky is orange and pink, large brush strokes of color. Instead of city streets on the other side of the fence, I imagine hills, deer, and water. I take the careful steps of a deer, quiet and ready.

There is a light breeze, zipping between my legs, under my armpits, lifting my hair off my face. I feel a curious heaviness from the earrings, the chain around my waist that moves as I lift my arms and stroke them through the air. My feet feel weighted down by the shoes and yet the rest of me is rising and getting longer. The sun is setting fast. I roll my head, tossing my hair around to feel it on my breasts. For me. The light wind blows it back behind me and it plays on my body. I am hot and cold, left and right, up and down, front and back. I am a circle of sensation. I am at the end of the runway and I stand still for a moment. The light is fading and a plane leaves tracks in the distance. I will remember this moment forever, I think to myself. I see myself thinking this, and make it true. And for a second or two I am naked, completely open, outside in the twilight.

From far away I hear the DJ’s voice. I realize that my audience is behind me and the song is over. As I turn around, I see folded money on the walkway that I have ignored, blowing back and forth like fall leaves. A dollar bill floats serenely in the hot tub, drifting through the steam.